Stranger
by crownthehound
Summary: It was not right for her to die before him, not from something as falling from a horse either.
1. The Stranger

She had been three days dying.

He had found her close to Harroway town. According to her story, she had fled from the Gates of The Moon the second that Littlefinger was distracted, and she dragged the little lord Robert Arryn along with her. He was sickly, with a runny nose and a spoiled attitude. She called him Sweetrobin. Sandor found this funny, how he found a little bird and a sweet robin flying away from a mockingbird. Too many damn birds for his like, when he would've accepted just the little one.

The boy died not long after. He was tucked close to the little bird's chest one night and then awoke, suddenly as if from a nightmare, shaking. She held him while he shook and sung to him, gently brushing his hair with her long fingers. He pissed all over himself and on her, but she seemed not to notice. And when he stopped shaking, he sighed and closed his eyes. She laid him back down to sleep and changed her dress without a hint of disgust, and then laid next to him and wrapped her arms around him again.

Sandor woke the next morning to her wailing. When she woke, her sweet robin was stiff and cold in her arms. His tiny wings still wrapped around her. Sandor thought that if he died in his sleep, in the arms of Sansa Stark, he would think that the best possible way to die. While he did not necessarily like the boy, he did feel sad for his death. He was only a child, after all, and it was sadder still how the bird mourned.

Not a month later, he had left Sansa on Stranger's back to take a piss on a nearby tree. The next thing he knew, they were attacked by a small group of wildlings. They intended to take Sansa live, no doubt, but they pulled her too roughly from Stranger's back and she fell. Her head cracked hard against the ground while he was busy slaughtering the few wildlings who did not flee.

He thought she had just knocked herself out, but when he approached her, his heart nearly burst from his chest. What he thought was her hair had been blood soaked into the snow around her pretty head. He held picked her up as gently as he could and wrapped her head with a clean pair of breeches to stop the bleeding. He walked with her, Stranger following behind, until he found a small abandoned house.

It only had one room, and was entirely empty but for a broken broom and an old pot. He spread both of their bedrolls out in the same spot and laid her down on the both of them. She did not tremble or stir at all, she only breathed.

She did not wake after the first day, nor the second. But on the third day, her eyes flew open and she looked over at him. She was terrified, and she reached out to him. He held her hand for comfort and told her she would be alright, but she did not hear. She was scared and confused. She tried to speak but her words made no sense. He ran his thumb gently across her cheek, comforting her in the only way he could, and her eyes shut again.

Part of him knew she would die. She did not eat or drink or relieve herself. But he could not accept that she was dying.

He was the soldier, the man over twice her age who was always in danger, while she was the gentle little bird, young and healthy. It was not right for her to die before him, not from something as falling from a horse either.

And on the fourth day, her breathing became shallow. It rattled in her throat and she turned a sickly yellow. It was like someone poured cold water over his head. He held her and wept. He could not bring himself to give her the gift of mercy, and hated himself for it.

It was night, and raining when she woke for the last time. She was so scared, he could see it in her eyes. She looked up and noticed he was holding her, and noticed he was crying. She reached up and cupped his cheek, like she had that time so long ago. She was no longer afraid, he saw. Her eyes filled with warmth, and he was adjusting his arms to hold her closer when he noticed the life leave them.

He wept so hard he wanted to vomit. "Please," he said hoarsely, pleading with her corpse. "Please, no. Gods, _please_, don't take her." He didn't want to believe in the Gods, but after his time on the Quiet Isle, and finding her again when it mattered the most, that flicker of belief was still there. "If you exist, don't take her from me. Give her back. I'll do anything... _anything_."

He held her, his tears staining her pretty dress along with her blood, until he felt her grow too cold and laid her neatly on the bedrolls. He wondered if he should slit his own throat.

"That's an option."

His head snapped up. A man stood in the corner of the room, and the shadows fled from him. He was tall, near as tall as the Mountain, but thin. His face was sharply angled and his skin was grey like a corpse. Like Sansa's. His hair was long like a woman's, black as tar, and slicked straight down his back. His eyes were black too. Sandor had once been in the service of kings and lions, but he never saw a man so finely dressed as the one who stood before him.

This man frightened Sandor like no other man ever did.

"Anything, you said." The man stepped forward and knelt in front of him, Sansa's corpse between them. "She's a lovely girl, but is she really worth the price? Renewal of life is expensive."

"I said anything and I meant it." Sandor was no longer afraid. "But if you bring her back, she must truly be alive. She must not be like Beric, or her mother. She must be as she was before she fell from my horse."

"Your horse was named after me. The brothers of the Quiet Isle called it blasphemy, they thought I would be insulted, but I was flattered." The man, The Stranger, smiled. "But you ask for life as she had before, and not to live as a corpse. That's an even higher price. Are you willing to pay?"

"How many times must I repeat myself? I said _anything_."

"I rarely appear to mortal men, you must know, but the other six have ignored your plea. I was the only one who heard. I am only making sure that I will not be talked ill of. I am not like R'hllor. I will not have my work spoken of as if it were mere witchcraft."

"What is it that you want?"

"I'm restoring life to a soul and life to a body. I want two souls, is all." He held up two fingers. "Only two."

Sandor drew his sword. "I'll kill the first two people I see."

"No, that means nothing." The Stranger spoke as if he were an imbecile. "I want your horse, for her body being restored. He's a good mount."

"Done." Sandor would miss his warhorse, but he could live without him. Not the little bird though, he _needed_ her.

"And when I restore the girl to her former self, and you marry her as you eventually will," He ignored Sandor's reaction to this. "I will have your first born daughter. I want a good horse and a beautiful girl, to restore her life." The Stranger ran his fingers down Sansa's face.

This was more difficult than giving up his horse. He would marry her, and they would have a child? He did not know the child, not now, and maybe never if he agreed. But he needed the little bird. They could have other children. The pain over losing a child was something he would have to take.

Sandor nodded in agreement.

Lightening cracked outside, and a flash of light entered through the window, and The Stranger was gone.

"is something the matter?" Sansa reached up, touching his arm. "Is the storm keeping you from sleeping?"

He gathered her in his arms and kissed her cheeks, weeping. She stiffened at first and then relaxed, wrapping her arms around him.

"Did you have a nightmare?" She asked softly.

He pulled back, looking at her. Her hair and dress were clean from blood, and her face was healthy with color. The bedroll wasn't stained either, and the breeches that were wrapped around her head were folded neatly in his bag. It was as if it never happened. Maybe it didn't happen. Maybe it was just a nightmare.

"I dreamt that you had died." He confessed. "I couldn't save you, and I held you while you died."

"I'm not dead, though. I'm alive. We both are, and we're safe and together now." She grabbed his face with both hands. "I won't let us be separated again. Not even The Stranger could take me away." She giggled lightly and pressed her face into his shoulder.

He couldn't tell her the rest of it. He couldn't, and it didn't matter anyway because it was only a dream.


	2. The Exchange

He knew it wasn't a dream the moment they woke and his horse was gone. Sansa said that maybe the storm had spooked him and he would return later, but he never did. Stranger felt no fear, and he wouldn't allow himself to be stolen. Only The Stranger could've taken Stranger.

Two years later, and he never forgot his promise. His debt that must be paid.

He married Sansa, like The Stranger said he would. Sansa didn't care that she was highborn, and said that if the bannermen of Winterfell took issue, she would give up Winterfell.

"I do not need a castle full of lost memories." She said. "And while I would like to make new memories there, I will not do it without you."

So they returned to Winterfell, and while no one was happy and everyone hated him, they grew to tolerate him because their lady loved him.

When she grew big with child, he was distant from her. He knew she only thought he was anxious, but he could not remind himself of the life he promised away. He hoped she would have a son instead, and delay his grief a little longer.

He did not regret his decision, it was because of that choice that she was there with him, but his heart ached for the daughter he would eventually lose. He wanted to weep when she held his hands to her stomach and he felt the movement underneath, knowing that it might cease and turn cold any day now.

He began to grow paranoid, thinking The Stranger would cheat him and take his wife in childbirth too. He went so far as to call Elder Brother from the Quiet Isle to assist in the delivery, knowing how he could draw anyone back from the clutches of death.

True enough, she birthed a girl. She labored for hours in pain to deliver a cold, dead, pathetic little thing. Sandor had never seen such grief in Sansa before. She clutched the dead child as if her life depended on it, wailing loud enough for the entire castle to hear. Sandor grieved too, but quietly and full of guilt.

A full day passed and Sansa refused to let go of her child. It took three grown men to hold her down, and Elder Brother took the child from her and placed it in Sandor's arms.

"Bury your daughter where you can remember, but Sansa cannot find her." The brother said. "This is hard for her. She has lost her wits, but hopefully she will regain them. You do not need her digging up her dead child. She will get a marker later, when this has passed."

Sandor nodded and wrapped his dead child in the blanket Sansa had made for her when she first discovered her pregnancy.

He found a nice spot in the Godswood and dug a grave, small and perfect, like he had done on the Isle so long ago. He clutched his daughter to his chest for a moment, for the first and last time, and then buried her.

"Our exchange is complete."

The Stranger stepped from behind a tree, terrifying and ominous as the first time he saw him.

"Unless you'd like to argue? In that case, I'll take both your daughter and your wife. You could have your horse back. I'd even bring you back a few years, to you holding your dead love back in that abandoned cottage."

Sandor shook his head.

"You know what you promised. You do not intend to cheat me. I can see that. Would you like to see her?"

Sandor's head snapped up, and he saw his horse for the first time in years. A tall, well-built young woman sat on his back. She was all leg and neck, and had straight brown hair. The vision was fading fast, but the last thing he saw of her was grey eyes. Like his, like the Starks. He heard laughter, light and genuine, as she faded away.

When he returned to Sansa, she was sobbing alone in her bed.

"I saw her, you know."

She sat up, staring at him.

"I had a brief vision as I was burying her." He confessed. "She was grown. Her hair was brown. She was taller than you, and wide. Her eyes were like mine. She was happy. She laughed. She was with Stranger."

She held him, clutching him tight while she cried. "Thank you." She whimpered. "I intended to name her after my mother. Catelyn. That's how we must remember her."

And a few weeks later, as he was helping build her gravestone, he decided he could not tell her of the promise he made those years ago.

He wondered if she would hate him for it, but then again he knew she would.


End file.
